User blog:VViooola/Social Media and Communicative Apps vs. Cell Phone Addiction----Viola Sun
Name: Viola Sun Course: International Relations Teacher: Stephen Smart Date: June 15, 2017 Words: 1667 ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' Although they undeniably bring benefits to people’s lives, cell phone applications like Wechat and Facebook contribute the most to people’s cell phone addiction. Nokia trend-spotter Jan Chipchase once commented on people’s reliance, and possibly addiction, to cell phones when she said, “three objects were considered essential across all participants, cultures and genders: keys, money and mobile phone.” (Thomas) Indeed, cell phone addiction has become more and more prevalent in the world. According to a survey conducted by TIMES Mobility Poll in 2010, 55% of people felt anxious without their cell phones around and by 2012, the number rose to 84% (Claudio). Multiple features of modern phones can be held accountable for this addiction. In a survey that was directed by Maple Leaf students, one question asked for the most time-consuming function in one’s phone, where 27% people answered communications and 16% people answered media, occupying the second and third hugest portions in the survey group (An). These functions in phone collectively refer to Wechat and Facebook, communicative and social media applications that are easy to operate, free and convenient. People are definitely benefiting from such applications, however, the repercussion that comes with the utilization is the addiction. Communicative and social media applications make cell phones addictive as they affect people biologically, psychologically and socially. Applications like Facebook and Wechat alter their users biologically. The trick is dopamine, a key player in the brain system that not only relates with sleep, dreaming, mood, and attention, but also with behavior, cognition and motivation that was discovered in 1958 by Arvid Carlsson and Nils-Ake Hillarp at the National Heart Institute. Dopamine is released by rewarding experiences like drugs, food, compliments and unpredictable incidents; the more one is rewarded, the more he or she craves to seek for more rewarding events. As it can be hard for one to discover rewards in reality, the internet, social media and platforms like moments, offer him or her easier paths to seek. Boundless information about people around, interesting articles that different bloggers post and the possibility of more “likes” and “comments” on Facebook and Wechat excites one, pushing one into an endless loop of seeking satisfactions. Then, another chemical that creates pleasure in the brain, opioid starts to work. When one senses pleasure and satisfaction, the seeking procedure ceases (Weinschenk). However, the circulation of dopamine and opioid does not end easily, evaluated Susan Weinschenk, a Ph.D. in psychology, as “the dopamine system is stronger than the opioid system, seeking is more likely to keep (one) alive than sitting around in a satisfied stupor.” The programmers of Wechat and Facebook manipulate people’s brains, stimulating the creation of more dopamine and opioid by constantly introducing heated topics, suddenly sending reminders for one to check his or her cell phone and alarming one with annoying red dots, which magnetizes their users to constantly visit these applications back and linger for more excitements and unpredictability. Meanwhile, as one uses Wechat and Facebook long enough, unknowingly, their “habits” start to develop into impulsive behaviors. According to a study, the Facebook and Wechat ‘addicts’ “show greater activation of their amygdale and striatum,” which are brain regions that control impulsive behavior, and there are no sign of soothing the anxiety and stress when Wechat and Facebook are unreachable for one. The impulsive behavior is revealed in an experiment that was conducted by Ofir Turel, a psychologist at California State University Fullerton, where 20 undergraduate students were asked to either press a Facebook logo or a neutral traffic sign. The Facebook “addicts” who score high in a previous Facebook addiction questionnaire conducted by Turel, correspondingly click on the Facebook logo quickly and uncontrollably (Ghose). This explains why seeing the Facebook application, one cannot help but click and indulge in it. The meticulous design of an endless loop and the cultivation of impulsive behavior illustrate why people are addicted to their cell phone through the use of Facebook and Wechat. As Facebook and Wechat alter people’s mind biologically through the stimulation of dopamine, opioid, amygdale and striatum, the psychological and social changes they bring is more legitimate and explainable. In addition, Facebook and Wechat appeal to people on a psychological level. According to former Google manager Tristan Harris, social media and communicative apps are “programming people” by “racing to the bottom of the brain stem,” including “fear, anxiety, and loneliness” (Cooper). While browsing the pages and moments on Facebook and Wechat, one’s mood is brought up and down temporarily, leaving one feeling empty and frustrated when one is not seeing the pages and moments. This is proven by a survey done in two Germany universities, where the researcher Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of Information Systems at Berlin’s Humboldt University concludes that “one in three feel worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives…leaving with envy, loneliness, frustration and anger”. In the same research that Maple Leaf students conduct in their school, the majority of people (52%) post their moments in two weeks or longer, but the same effect of addiction goes for them as well (An). As studied by Krasnova, “people who browse without contributing” take the hugest proportion in the group of people being affected, and are “affected the most” (Rainoshek). The more one feels upset after logging out, the more likely one is going to keep lingering on Wechat and Facebook. The emptiness one feels encourages narcissism breeding, raising his or her spirits. Thus, one expects to be mentioned on Wechat, hopes posts about him or her receive likes and positive comments, wants him or her to appear as good as the others and dreams for others to envy his or her life on the posts as well. Similarly, one’s narcissism is also fulfilled by suddenly receiving messages from Wechat and Facebook, feeling important and popular. “We develop a dependency,” commented by David Rainoshek, a famous blogger and an Integral philosopher in the tradition of Ken Wilber, a renowned American writer and speaker. “just like a drug or processed junk food.” Moreover, as Facebook and Wechat appeal to one’s vanity, they also make one feel that he and she is no longer “lonely”. Waterloo graduate Amanda Forest once said that people with low self-esteem tend to find comfort by making personal disclosures on platforms like Facebook, as they would not see the negative reactions from others that they tend to see in normal lives when they fully disclose their negativities and instead will possibly receive messages that cheer them up (Paddock). The same applies to other people; when people can easily reach for friends to chat online, they develop dependencies on communicative functions on phones, providing them with such facilities. When one’s request to chat is responded quickly by other people, their sense of loneliness temporarily diminishes. Like drugs, every time one feels lonely, he or she tends to log in Wechat and Facebook for comforts. This frequency to reach out for fulfillment of vanity and loneliness results in people’s dependence, urging them to constantly check their phones. Finally, Facebook and Wechat affect people on a social level. Many people rely on Wechat and Facebook to maintain connections with others and to grasp what is going on around them in a bigger scale. Not only is sending messages a way of reconnecting and strengthening bonds with acquaintances and distant individuals, moments and Facebook pages are seen as effective ways to sustain social contact. When asked about the frequency with which they engage in certain behaviors on the site, Facebook and Wechat users tend to point towards “liking” content that others have posted and commenting on photos as the activities they engage in most often. 44% of Facebook users “like” content posted by their friends at least once a day, with 29% doing so several times per day (Smith). This “liking” and “commenting” is almost like a polite custom of showing other people that one cares. When one fails to fulfill this “duty” of liking and commenting other people’s moments and Facebook pages, it indicates in some ways that they are not connected anymore, suggesting estrangement. Thus, one is propelled to like and comment other people’s posts constantly as a “convention”, and the more he or she repeats so, the more one sticks to his or her cell phone. On another hand, although some people reported experiencing envy, frustration and anger when viewing Facebook pages and Wechat moments, one specific social fear, the fear of missing out (or “FOMO”) pushes them to continue logging into these applications. In a statistic provided by Aaron Smith, a master of public policies at University of Texas and an associate director of research on internet and technology issues at Pew Research Center, 84% of the Facebook users report that Facebook life does not bother them. They consist of the people, who, afraid of being ignorant and left out in their social network, choose to ignore the negativities about the communications and social media applications. This is the social trick that Facebook and Wechat apply on people: providing people with platforms to stay engaged with a reduced cost of admission. Staying active in these applications will give people social rewards like messages from group chats and new information and gossips on the moments and posts. Because of the conveniences and connections that Facebook and Wechat bring to their social lives, people tend to rely on the platforms where they have access to these applications, their cell phones. This reliance makes people become more addicted to their cell phone. In conclusion, amongst all other time consuming functions in one’s cell phone, the communicative and social media applications make the cell phone the most addictive. Applications like Facebook and Wechat manipulate people biologically, psychologically and socially, developing people’s increasing addiction on their cell phones. Communicative and social media applications not only merely arouse people’s reliance, but they have created concrete damages on human like the cultivation of impulsive behavior, which makes them responsible for their user’s cell phone addiction. It truly is time for people to look at the negative consequences that communicative and social media applications bring, tracing back to the origins of their addictions and finding ways to manage them. Works Cited: An, Scarlet and Viola Sun and Zoe Zhang and Baraka Zhou, “Survey Report.” Maple Leaf International School. 6 June 2017. Printed. 12 June 2017 Claudio. “10 Terrifying Statistics on Your Cellphone addiction”. The Richest. 21 May 2014. Web. 8 June 2017 Cooper, Anderson. “What is ‘Brain hacking’? Tech Insiders on Why You Should Care.” CBS. 09 April 2017. Web. 6 June 2017 Ghose, Tia. “What Facebook Addiction Looks Like in the Brain.” Live Science. 27 Jan. 2015. Web. 7 June 2017 Paddock, Catherine. “Facebook Use Feeds Anxiety and Inadequacy Says Small Study.” Medical News Today. ''2012. Web. 11 June 2017 Rainoshek, David. “How Facebook (FB) is Altering Your Mind.” 12 June 2013. Web. 11 June 2017 Smith, Aaron. “6 New Facts about Facebook.” ''Pew Research Center. 3 February. 2014. Web. 10 June. 2017 Thomas, William. '“Of Cell Phones and Other Hazards of the Wireless Age.” ''ABC. 26 ''' February. 2014. Web. 10 June. 2017 Weinschenk, Susan. “Why We're All Addicted to Texts, Twitter and Google”. ''Psychology Today. ''11 Sep. 2012. Web. 6 June 2017 Category:Blog posts Category:Researches